Staff Scientist - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Theoretical Division
2023 - Present
Postdoctoral Research - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Theoretical Division
Supervisor: Jian-Xin Zhu
2022 - 2023
Graduate Research - University of California, Berkeley
Department of Physics
Supervisor: Jeffrey B. Neaton
2017 - 2022
Undergraduate Research - University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Supervisor: Yung-Ya Lin
2010-2012
First-principles materials simulations
Emergent phenomena from defects and interfacial proximity effects
Quantum:
Quantum materials
Quantum sensing
Quantum computing
Applied energy materials
Ph.D. Physics - University of California, Berkeley (2016 - 2022)
M.A. Physics - University of California, Berkeley (2016-2019)
B.S. Chemistry - University of California, Los Angeles (2008-2013)
B.S. Applied Mathematics - University of California, Los Angeles (2008 - 2013)
2021 Kavli Philomathia Graduate Student Fellowship, Kavli ENSI, UC Berkeley
2017 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley
2013 Phi Beta Kappa Society
2008-2012 Regent Scholar Award, UCLA
2013 Daus Memorial Award, UCLA Dept. of Math
2011 Jeffrey George Wilson Honor Program Research Stipend, UCLA
2011 Naumburg Honors Research Stipend, UCLA
2011, 2012 Rose Gilbert in Memory of Maggie Gilbert Scholarship, UCLA
2010 Kivelson Summer Research Fellowship, UCLA
M. T. Pettes, S.-Z. Lin, E. A. Peterson, J.-X. Zhu, L. E. Winter, J. C. Palmstrom, J. Yoo, N. S. Sirica, P. Padmanabhan, P. F. S. Rosa, S. M. Thomas, A. Saxena, "Quantum Anomalies in Condensed Matter Physics," Adv. Phys. Res., 2400189 (2025) DOI:10.1002/apxr.202400189
E. A. Peterson, C. Lane, J.-X. Zhu, “Te Vacancy-Driven Anomalous Transport in ZrTe5 and HfTe5,” Adv. Phys. Res., 2300111 (2024). DOI:10.1002/apxr.202300111
M. S. Cook, E. A. Peterson*, C. Girod, A. Weiland, J.-X. Zhu, J. Thompson, S. M. Thomas, P. F. S. Rosa, “Structural transtition and anisotropic magnetism in disordered Zintl phase Eu7Ga6Sb8,” Phys. Rev. Mater., 7, 094601 (2023). DOI:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.7.094601
A. Sood, J. B. Haber, J. Carlström, E. A. Peterson, E. Barre, J. D. Georgaras, A. H. M. Reid, X. Shen, M. E. Zajac, E. C. Regan, J. Yang, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, F. Wang, X. Wang, J. B. Neaton, T. F. Heinz, A. M. Lindenberg, F. H. da Jornada, A. Raja, “Bidirectional phonon emission in two-dimensional heterostructures triggered by ultrafast charge transfer,” Nat. Nanotechnol., 18, 29 (2023). DOI:10.1038/s41565-022-01253-7
L. Zhou, E. A. Peterson*, M. H. Richter, J. B. Neaton, J. M. Gregoire, “Fe substitutions improve spectral response of Bi2WO6-based photoanode,” ACS Appl. Energy Mater., 5, 15333 (2022). DOI:10.1021/acsaem.2c02964
E. A. Peterson, T. T. Debela, G. M. Gomoro, J. B. Neaton, G. A. Asres, "Electronic structure of strain-tunable Janus WSSe-ZnO heterostructures from first-principles," RSC Adv., 12, 31303 (2022). DOI:10.1039/D2RA05533C
L. Zhou, E. A. Peterson*, K. K. Rao, Y. Lu, X. Li, Y. Lai, S. R. Bauers, M. H. Richter, K. Kan, Y. Wang, P. F. Newhouse, J. Yano, J. B. Neaton, M. Bajdich, J. M. Gregoire, “Addressing solar photochemistry durability with an amorphous nickel antimonate photoanode", Cell Rep., 3, 100959 (2022). DOI:10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.100959
E. A. Peterson, J. B. Haber, J. B. Neaton, “Superexchange-induced valley splitting in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides: A first-principles study for rational design,”Phys. Rev. B,104, 205421 (2021). DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.104.205421
M. H. Richter, E. A. Peterson*, L. Zhou, A. A. Shinde, P. F. Newhouse, Q. Yan, S. W. Fackler, J. Yano, J. K. Cooper, K. A. Persson, J. B. Neaton, J. M. Gregoire, “Band Edge Energy Tuning Through Electronic Character Hybridization in Ternary Metal Vanadates,” Chem. Mater., 33, 7242 (2021). DOI:10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c01415
R. Murphy, L. Darago, M. Ziebel, E. A. Peterson*, E. W. Zaia, M. W. Mara, D. J. Lussier, D. Shuh, J. Urban, J. B. Neaton, J. R. Long, “Exchange Bias in a Layered Metal-Organic Topological Spin Glass”, ACS Cent. Sci., 7, 1317 (2020). DOI:10.1021/acscentsci.1c00568
Y.-R. Lin, W.-H. Cheng, M. H. Richter, J. S. DuChene, E. A. Peterson*, C. M. Went, Z. Y. Al Balushi, D. Jariwala, J. B. Neaton, L.-C. Chen, H. A. Atwater, "Band Edge Tailoring in Few-layer Two-dimensional Molybdenum Sulfides/Selenides Alloys", J. Phys. Chem. C, (2020). DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c04719
L. Zhou, A. Shinde, S. K. Suram, H. S. Stein, S. R. Bauers, A. Zakutayev, J. S. DuChene, G. Liu, E. A. Peterson*, J. B. Neaton, J. M. Gregoire, "Bi-Containing n-FeWO4 Thin Films Provide the Largest Photovoltage and Highest Stability for a Sub-2eV Band Gap Photoanode," ACS Energy Lett., 3, 2769 (2018). DOI:10.1021/acsenergylett.8b01514
*First theory author
M. S. Cook, E. A. Peterson*, C. S. Kengle, E. R. Kennedy, J. Sheeran, C. Girod, G. S. Freitas, S. M. Greer, P. Abbamonte, P. G. Pagliuso, J. D. Thompson, S. M. Thomas, P. F. S. Rosa, "Magnetic polaron formation in EuZn2P2," arXiv:2504.05494 under review Phys. Rev. Mater.
C. S. Kengle, N. Schnitzer, E. A. Peterson*, A. Schmidt, M. S. Cook, S. M. Thomas, F. Ronning, L. F. Kourkoutis, P. F. S. Rosa, "Putative insulating state in narrow gap semiconductor La3Cd2As6" arXiv:2506.09235 submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett.
E. A. Peterson, S. L. Watkins, C. Lane, J.-X. Zhu, “Beyond-DFT ab initio Calculations for Accurate Prediction of Sub-GeV Dark Matter Experimental Reach,” arXiv:2310.00147 under review Phys. Rev. D
E. A. Peterson, “Engineering van der Waals heterostructures of layered Dirac materials for meV-scale quantum sensing,” in preparation.
P. Abbamonte, A. Albert, D. S. M. Alves, J. Anczarski, T. ARalis, T. U. Böhm, C. Boyd, P.-H. Chu, M. S. Cook, M. L. Graesser, Y. Kahn, C. S. Kengle, N. A. Kurinsky, C. Lane, R. Massarczyk, S. J. Meijer, W. Nie, E. A. Peterson, A. Phipps, F. Ronning, P. F. S. Rosa, N. S. Sirica, Z. J. Smith, S. M. Thomas, S. L. Watkins, B. A. Young, J.-X. Zhu, "SPLENDOR: Search for Particles of Light Dark Matter with Narrow-Gap Semiconductors," to be submitted.
Quantum and Energy Materials: Emergent Phenomena at Defects and Interfaces
Elizabeth A. Peterson
01/22/2025 LANL-UM SPARC Workshop on Computational Materials (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI)
Strain-engineering the electronic structure of layered Dirac Materials
Elizabeth A. Peterson
10/15/2024 Joint Workshop LANL-NIMS Quantum and Functional Materials 2024 (NIMS, Tsukuba, Japan)
Engineering Quantum Materials for Quantum Sensing and Light Dark Matter Detection
Elizabeth A. Peterson
08/16/2024 Molecular Foundry Annual User Meeting 2024 (Berkeley, CA)
Narrowing the gap: ab initio design of quantum materials for sub-GeV dark matter detection
Elizabeth A. Peterson
10/27/2023 Quantum Proves of Wave-like and Sub-GeV Dark Matter from Photonics to Quantum Sensing (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ)
Searching for sub-GeV Dark Matter with Quantum Materials - an ab initio Exploration
Elizabeth A. Peterson
10/25/2023 Dark Cosmos Seminar Series (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ)
Elucidating the chiral anomaly in Dirac materials via electronic structure calculations
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
01/12/2023 21st International Workshop on Computational Physics and Materials Science: Total Energy and Force Methods (ICTP, Trieste, Italy)
Harnessing quantum materials for rational design of magnetic interfaces for quantum information
Elizabeth A. Peterson
12/20/2022 Institute for Materials Science (IMS) Sponsored Lecture (LANL, Los Alamos, NM)
Superexchange-induced valley splitting in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jonah B. Haber, Jeffrey B. Neaton
02/08/2022 UC Berkeley Physics Department 290K Condensed Matter Seminar (Berkeley, CA)
First-principles study of exchange-induced valley splitting in transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jeffrey B. Neaton
06/15/2021 Workshop for the US-Africa Initiative in Electronic Structure (Virtual)
Electronic structure engineering the layered Dirac materials ZrTe5 and HfTe5 via Te point defects
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
03/18/2025 APS Global Physics Summit (Anaheim, CA)
Engineering van der Waals heterostructures of layered Dirac materials for meV-scale quantum sensing
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jian-Xin Zhu
04/25/2024 MRS Spring Meeting (Seattle, WA)
Ab initio design of quantum sensors: from dark matter to QIS
Elizabeth A. Peterson
04/19/2024 Los Alamos-Arizona Days 2024 (Los Alamos, NM)
Engineering van der Waals heterostructures of layered Dirac materials for meV-scale quantum sensing
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jian-Xin Zhu
03/07/2024 APS March Meeting (Minneapolis, MN)
Probing Te Vacancies a sa Source of the Chiral Anomaly in Layered Dirac Materials ZrTe5 and HfTe5
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
11/27/2023 MRS Fall Meeting (Boston, MA)
First-principles design of hybridization-based 2D quantum sensors
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jian-Xin Zhu
09/21/2023 CA-USG Workshop on 2D Materials (Irvine, CA)
Elucidating the chiral anomaly in the electronic structure of Dirac Materials
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
08/03/2023 LANL-PSI Workshop on Correlated and Topological Quantum Materials (Albuquerque, NM)
Shedding light on novel paths to high-efficiency photocatalysis of solar fuels
Elizabeth A. Peterson
07/18/2022 MPA-11 Seminar, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM)
Elucidating the chiral anomaly in the electronic structure of Dirac Materials
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
07/05/2023 International Conference on Strongly Correlated Systems 2023 (Incheon, South Korea)
First-principles Calculations of Dielectric Functions Using the GW Approximation for Dark Matter Detection
Elizabeth A. Peterson
06/22/2023 Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Training for Modeling Physical Systems (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, Virtual)
Self-energy corrected calculations of the dielectric function for light dark matter detection via electronic excitations
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
06/08/2023 2023 Conference on Excited States Processes (Santa Fe, NM)
Ab initio calculations of the dielectric function of Eu5In2Sb6 for light dark matter detection
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Priscila F. S. Rosa, Sean M. Thomas, Filip Ronning, Daniele S. M. Alves, Christopher Lane, Jian-Xin Zhu
03/10/2023 APS March Meeting (Las Vegas, NV)
Ab initio calculations of the dielectric function of quantum materials for light dark matter detection
Elizabeth A. Peterson
02/01/2023 NIST Quantum Matters in Materials Science (QMMS) (Virtual)
Maximizing switchable valley splitting in monolayer TMDs with superexchange and multiferroics
Elizabeth A. Peterson
10/03/2022 T-4 BLABS Seminar, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM)
First principles investigation of the effect of excess charge carriers and illumination on the band edge energies of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Aurélie Champagne, Jeffrey B. Neaton
03/15/2022 APS March Meeting (Chicago, IL)
First-principles study of exchange-induced valley splitting in transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jeffrey B. Neaton
03/18/2021 APS March Meeting (Virtual)
First-principles studies of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides on 3D magnetic oxides
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Jeffrey B. Neaton
03/07/2019 APS March Meeting (Boston, MA)
A first-principles high-throughput search for layered sulfides for CO2 reduction photocatalysis
Elizabeth A. Peterson, Sebastian E. Reyes-Lillo, John M. Gregoire, Jeffrey B. Neaton
03/07/2018 APS March Meeting (Los Angeles, CA)